I predict the season will start on Jan 1, 2013, with the Winter Classic. We won't lose a whole year again. But Bettman and his small market owners won't have a problem dumping the first part of the season...it'll be like 1995.

Boston Canucker wrote:I predict the season will start on Jan 1, 2013, with the Winter Classic. We won't lose a whole year again. But Bettman and his small market owners won't have a problem dumping the first part of the season...it'll be like 1995.

At risk of taking this thread off-track, I would say that Buttman's biggest backers are not necessarily the small market owners. The biggest ones are just cost-squeezing, labour-hating robber-baron types like the Jacobs family in Boston. That's a big reason why the league isn't buying the PA's idea of better revenue-sharing as a way to solve the league's alleged financial ills - the rich owners have no interest giving away their profits to the small market owners or the basket-case sunbelt teams when they can just solve it on the backs of the players.

I admit that I took the league's story during the lockout. It was easy to believe when teams in Edmonton, Ottawa and elsewhere couldn't compete with the rich teams for FAs and got their assets raped every summer and the threats of relocation. I still think a salary cap is a necessity to keep the competitive field somewhat level in the competition and retention of talent. But for the league to get the salary cap it wasted a season to get, and still claim they need to roll back salaries and lock down free agency for the sake of the league's viability, that takes serious chutzpah. Their position is unbelievable and I can imagine the chuckles coming out of the PA offices as they pore over the documents.

Linden was prophetic when he said that the owners will likely wait out the start of the season, when the most influential owners have to compete with football and baseball for spectator dollars anyway, and Fehr's bunch should just take that as a giiven assumption. I think the blinking will start in December when the owners will start really looking at the prospect of empty arenas and their fanbase looking elsewhere to spend their dollars and time. Hopefully the PA will stick to its guns even if it means shit-canning next season. How much more are they going to give before they end up in the same place they were before the PA was born?

To me one thing that is never included in the equation is owners have to put down and guarantee funding in extremely large quantities. It's venture capital that could and would do better buying Apple stock. Teams and owners such as the Phx disaster are just around the corner and there is not a long line of idiots willing to rush for an NHL franchise. What one owner paid for a franchise may differ immensley from what another paid and now some are suggesting to compound this they throw their profits ( often long worked and invested in ) with other owners that frankly would like to get out with the clothes on their backs.

It's also note worthy that that the NHLPA are unwilling to invest any of their money into a team, they no only too well what the figures are and they too can do better investing in Apple.

In the negoiation ticket holders are always the ones that have to make up the difference and yet get no say

Fred wrote:To me one thing that is never included in the equation is owners have to put down and guarantee funding in extremely large quantities. It's venture capital that could and would do better buying Apple stock.

Would your friends be more impressed by you:

a) Owning Apple Stock
b) Owning an NHL Franchise

It's an ego trip for most, some might love the game, and a few might see it as an investment - and of course, there are those that look at it as a scam to run.

Owning a team isn't always about making a profit. Owners have a choice if they want to get into the NHL.

Of course, back in the day, it was business and the players were mere commodities. The league's come a long way from that.

Let me just say this. ALL these guys are businessmen first and fore most. If you want an example of a businessman's view of the world watch Kevin O'Leary on the Lang & O'Leary report. Money gives them a buzz. They get that buzz by making lots of it again and again. They do not like to loose money ....kinda spoils their day. The circles they move in think and act the same, they're ridiculed when they loose money. Think maybe Anita McCambridge in Slapshot. True some teams have owners that follow the sport but it's just as true many teams are no more than tax deductions for other profitable business

Fred wrote:I might invest your money but I wouldn't put a plugged nickel of my money into an NHL franchise, do you remember when the Canucks were drawing 7500 a game

Fred, I read your point of view in the strike thread and all I can say is you should work for the taxman if you believe that owning a NHL franchise is a losing proposition. Thats the same bullshit the rich man sells every year, I cant pay my taxes, I lost money.
rich man always makes money even when he is losing money he is still making money

For the most part, even the franchises that are losing the most money have seen their franchise value rise exponentially since the lockout.

For instance, during/after the last lockout the Anaheim Ducks were sold on the cheap, less than $100M if I'm not mistaken, and by now the franchise value is well over $100M.

So even when teams lose money, they can rest assured that the value of the team will continue to grow...sort of like a real estate investment, and if you want its value to rise, you have to do some work around the house.

Either way, the franchise value is always a giant safety net that helps against losses over the long term as value accrues. Obviously, if you own a shitty team in a shitty market, the value growth may become somewhat retarded, but there will always be some growth.

At the end of the day, owning a sports team is a longer term investment, and one that can cost owners money, but not as much as one might think in light of the suggested annual losses by individual teams.